It has been a result of several medical researches and studies that uric acid foods are major contributing factors in causing a painful arthritic disease known as gout.
If one intends to avoid this painful experience, it can be helped by living a health promoting lifestyle and diet management. Eating habits significantly influence almost all health conditions of our body.
Uric acid is waste material produced in processing the chemical compounds called purines, a substance present in many of the foods commonly eaten today. Needless to say, the uric acid foods that we incessantly eat will only lead to the most dreaded and painful gout.
What happens if there is too much uric acid in the body?
Medically explained, uric acids in our body reach a certain level when it will crystallize. Altough these crystals are not the real causes of our gout pain. The pain that we feel stems from the natural process by which our immune system is reacting to the crystals because our immune system treats the crystals as foreign bodies that they should attack.
As soon as crystals are deposited in our joints, the reaction between our immune system and the deposited crystal takes place in this area, often manifested as a swelling joint. Accordingly, once the immune system is successful in encasing these crystals with a protective coating so as not to produce further harm to the body, the swelling will start to ease out. Nonetheless, the problem doesn’t end there.
The lowering of uric acid in the body will also trigger another round of reaction from our immune system. The cell coating of the encased crystal will start to shed off because the crystals are starting to dissolve; hence, their re-emergence triggers the immune system to launch another attack to contain them. Obviously, the reactive process entails another swelling experience.
Since we now have a clear understanding how our body reacts to high deposits of uric acid in our body, minimizing our intake of uric acid food will likewise minimize the occurrence of gout. We should therefore be more mindful of how much and how often we intake the following types of uric acid food:
Types of Uric Acid Foods
- Foods high in protein such as meat (beef, pork, lamb, fish, poultry), meat extracts, and tofu
- liver, brains, kidneys and other internal meats
- anchovies and sardines
- seafood mainly shellfish like clams, oysters, shrimp, scallop, crabs, lobster and crayfish
- Asparagus, cauliflower, mushrooms, spinach, and dried beans
- sweet breads
Foods that are prepared with a considerable amount of yeast such as beer and bread must also be regulated. Alcoholic beverages and other caffeine rich beverages are also high in purines, thus there is a need to limit its consumption.
While the uric acid foods can heighten the formation of gout, the key factor here is to manage the amount of intake regarding these types of foods. Eliminating them is not at all recommended, lest it may result to another form of deficiency. This is therefore the concept of maintaining and observing a well-balanced diet.